NOC, where's the professionalism??

[oohhgolly]

I've been a lurker on this site for the past few years. I have since become a nursing student and work in the float pool for a local hospital. I work nights and am really becoming disturbed by some of the behavior I see from staff. Time and time again I see staff busting up and carrying on right outside of patients rooms in the wee hours of the morning. I hear cuss words and discussions about drinking heavily (one nurse actually admitted to driving home drunk one night) and all of this I know can be heard from the patients rooms as I've been in the room and have overheard the conversation. I try to avoid the conversations which proves to be pretty easy since I'm a bit of an outsider as a floater. I don't want to come across as Debbie Downer or a buzz kill but i find this behavior to be ridiculous. I try to gently say "hey I can hear you in here" but I feel like it falls on deaf ears. I know that we say that our patients will not be getting great amounts of sleep in the hospital but do we really have to make it that much worse by being obnoxious at the nurses station at 3 am??? What do I do???

Sincerely,

A very disappointed and disheartened nurse to be

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Wait until the patient surveys come back. On them will more than likely have quotations around the exact conversations that are happening outside of any given patient's room.

Then it will be equally as interesting to see what, if anything, is done about it.

[macawake, MSN]

Your coworkers sound rather immature and self-centered. I’m all for having fun at work, a laugh or three certainly helps us get through our often emotionally taxing job. We need to decompress. However, there’s a time and a place. It’s entirely doable to have fun without robbing patients of much needed sleep and without giving them reason to doubt our level of professionalism.

I’m sure enough patients will eventually complain if this behavior is a recurring event. Meanwhile, just keep up the good work and continue acting professionally. That’s all you can really do, you only have control over your own actions and behavior.

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

I've worked nights for 7 years. Noise is always the biggest complaint. Of course most of my patients complain about the confused patient yelling which a limited amount can be done about. We have a new initiative called The No Pass Zone which means if you hear an IV beep or patient calling in you go in rather than walking by(which is what I've always done unless I'm having an emergency.) We have 2 enclosed break rooms with doors if people what to be loudish. You have anything like that?

[workingmama77, BSN]

I remember working nights and depending on what staff was working there was a tendency to get loud occasionally. Always irritated me, especially one certain staff member who had no problem talking loudly right outside patients' rooms about getting prescription drugs from relatives illegally. Needless to say she got reported. As for noise volume, if you notice it getting too loud a gentle reminder usually works to settle everyone down.

[amzyRN]

We have surveys. Noise was a big complaint, so we started closing doors and using our "inside voice." Try closing pt's doors, maybe talk to you manager about a quiet initiative, a suggestion to improve patient satisfaction (don't name individual names, but say you think in general people could be quieter on the unit). Sometimes people forget and talk loud, so reminders help.

[THELIVINGWORST, ASN, RN]

We got a stop light that beeps if we get too loud, but people ignored it because of alarm fatigue. It's hard to remember to be quiet when for us, it's the middle of the day.

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

We have surveys. Noise was a big complaint, so we started closing doors and using our "inside voice." Try closing pt's doors, maybe talk to you manager about a quiet initiative, a suggestion to improve patient satisfaction (don't name individual names, but say you think in general people could be quieter on the unit). Sometimes people forget and talk loud, so reminders help.

Unfortunately this wouldn't work on our unit(closing doors.) Too many confused patients!